Suman Sapkota
Trained as a mechanical engineer, Suman Sapkota works as a research, development and innovation engineer for Damen Dredging Equipment, in the Netherlands. He has a background in 3D modeling (CAD), computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis and sustainable energy technology. Suman completed his MSc in sustainable energy technology (specialisation in engineering fluid dynamics) from the University of Twente, in the Netherlands. His specific research interests lie in fluid mechanics for turbomachines, cavitating flows, sediment erosion and fluid-structure interaction (FSI).
Articles By Suman Sapkota
Estimating sediment erosion of a centrifugal dredge pump’s impeller
Sediment erosion is a phenomenon of mechanical wear of components that decreases efficiency and uptime of the dredging process. Dredge pumps are designed to handle mixtures of water and solid particles with varying particle size from less than 0.002 mm to greater than 200 mm. A dredge pump’s overall effectivity in the field depends upon its uptime. Uptime is influenced by the number of times the pumping process is interrupted, which can be due to maintenance combating the material loss, clogging, etc. This research deals with the erosion phenomena by considering a framework of numerical models, capable of qualitative and quantitative erosion estimation, coupled with experiments for validation. Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) is used for surface roughness measurement before and after the experiment, thus depicting the material loss due to erosion.